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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399376">Misunderstandings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonlightMeika/pseuds/MoonlightMeika'>MoonlightMeika</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Mer!Lance, MerMay 2020, Werewolf AU, Werewolf!Keith, mermaid au, mermaid!lance, no beta (we die like men), wolf!keith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:01:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,266</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonlightMeika/pseuds/MoonlightMeika</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about misunderstandings, accidental courting, and falling in love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Keith/Lance (Voltron)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Misunderstandings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I can now officially say I’ve participated in MerMay!! Yay! (finally, lol)<br/>I hope you enjoy this first chapter; I don’t know when I’ll be posting more &gt;_&gt; ha...ha...OTL</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Living alone in the middle of the woods suits Keith just fine. He’s close, but not too close, to the river for fresh water. He’s close, but not too close, to the village to trade for supplies and food. And he’s close, but not too close, to the ocean.</p><p>Sitting in the cooling sand watching the rays of light from a sunset as it reflects off the shimmering water is one of the fondest memories he has of his parents. They made sure he knew how to swim. They taught him to hunt. They prepared him for life: to survive.</p><p>He enjoys being alone in his one-room cabin. No one to annoy him and no one to disturb his thoughts. Dreading his weekly trips into town isn’t necessarily the right word, but it’s unpleasant all the same.</p><p>Instead of taking the straight path from his cabin into town, Keith always takes a detour that allows him to walk past the ocean. It’s nice; crisp clean air fills his lungs and he tries to hold on to that feeling before he gets to the dirty, unpleasant smelling, village. The people are tolerable, he supposes, but it doesn’t change the fact they reek. Good hygiene is few and far between, even frowned upon by the elderly.</p><p>“Help! Help! Please! Someone, help!”</p><p>Keith blinks and cocks his head to the side ever so slightly. This could be...interesting.</p><p>He follows the cries for help at a leisurely pace until he is within speaking distance of a young man tangled in a fisherman’s net at the edge of the ocean.</p><p>“Oh, thank goodness! Can you help me? I went to check my net for fish and somehow this happened!”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>The trapped man sputters and stares wide-eyed, speechless, at Keith for a few moments, processing.</p><p>“Wh-What?! What do you mean no! Why not?! It won’t take you any time at all to cut me free with the knife on your belt!”</p><p>“True. But it could cost me my life.”</p><p>The stranger reels back as if struck, a flicker of what might be described as guilt flashes across his face before shifting back to angry. </p><p>“What is that supposed to mean? If you don’t want to help me just go away, jerk!”</p><p>Keith hums, as if thinking about it. Then says, “You didn’t start yelling for help until you could see me.”</p><p>“Wh...What?” Surprise, shock. “But. How could you-?”</p><p>Keith points a finger toward his ear, “Good ears.”</p><p>The mysterious man glares at Keith, “So? Maybe I was just saving my breath. I don’t understand how you jumped to that could mean your death.”</p><p>Keith smiles sharply, literally. Fangs and all. “I have a good nose too.”</p><p>The entangled man freezes, instinctually rearing back as his body moves before his mind can even process what all those clues put together mean. His brain finally connects all the dots and he breathes out one single, faint, word. “Wolf.”</p><p>“Mer.”</p><p>They stare at each other for a bit, neither making a move, muscles tense.</p><p>“Are you going to kill me?” His tone is deceptively flat, void of emotion. But he can’t mask his scent, or his heartbeat.</p><p>Keith snarls, sneering at the Mer as he cowers back, muscles locking in fear. “No. I’m not a murderer.” Keith spins on his heel, probably kicking up enough sand to hit the Mer and not caring at all.</p><p>Taking a single long, deep breath, <em>salt of the ocean tinted with fear,</em> he puts the thought of the Mer out of his mind. He continues on to the village, choosing to focus instead on his plans for the day. He’d go to the market first, see what they have for fresh fruit, maybe go to that one elderly woman and commision a blanket for the coming winter. Then he’d go see if the butcher had any decent salt for trade, if not, what he gathers from the ocean works just fine to cure meat.</p><p>With his plan for the day finally in place, Keith sets out to get it done as quickly as possible, breathing shallowly through his mouth the entire time. The people there know him as a man of few words.</p><p>...</p><p>Typically, after he was done in the village, Keith would head straight back to his cabin, rushing through the forest, letting the wind clear his mind and nose. But not today.</p><p>As he started down the familiar path a certain Mer popped into his mind and he couldn’t get rid of the image. He tried to reason with himself, the Mer was clearly terrified so why would he have stuck around, but his feet were already carrying him back towards the beach. Just to check, he told himself, just to see that the Mer was gone. That he had already left, hadn’t killed anyone, and would never see him again.</p><p>He arrived at the border of where grass turned to sand and his heart stopped. There, the Mer, free from the net; there, a young girl, maybe only seven or eight. He ran. He knew he was too far, even shifted he wouldn’t make it, but still he ran.</p><p>Keith knew the exact moment the Mer saw him; body stiffening, saying a quick farwell, and he was gone. Disappeared back into the ocean.</p><p>“Bye bye!” The little girl repeated, waving at the waves. No sign of the Mer that had been there just moments before.</p><p>“What?” Keith asked, coming to a stop near the girl, dazed from this strange turn of events.</p><p>The child turned towards Keith and blinked at him slowly. “I was building a castle by myself in the sand.”</p><p>“What?” Keith repeated, hearing the obvious lie even without his ears.</p><p>“I was playing alone all day. I should go home now; bye bye mister!”</p><p>She was gone before he could gather his bearings, like a wisp of smoke on a windy day.</p><p>Keith could feel his brow furrow as he tried to understand what could have possibly just taken place. Mers ate humans; murdered them and dragged them down to the depths of the sea. No deviation: this was how all creatures knew Mers to be.</p><p>But suddenly, it wasn’t? How? <em>Why?</em></p><p>A ways out in the water a head breached the surface, scent dulled by distance and water but sad all the same. “You know,” he whispered and smiled sadly when Keith turned his gaze to meet his own. “We may be monsters but that doesn’t mean we have to be monstrous.” </p><p>Eyes stayed locked for a bit longer, neither wanting to be the first to turn away. Then, between one breath and the next, one wave and the next, the Mer sunk beneath the waves and returned to the sea.</p><p>Keith was silent, unmoving, thinking about what was just said. He turns around, mulling everything over and not making heads or tails of any of it. He sees his bags, contents strewn across the sand in his mad dash to the water’s edge, and picks up an apple silently. He turns it over in his hand, studies it like it has the answers to his questions somewhere on its skin, turns his gaze back out to the ocean and throws it as straight and as far as he can.</p><p>He’s not sure why he does that, or even if Mers can eat fruit, and maybe it’s an apology that his mouth is unable to form. It wouldn’t even begin to make up for his behavior and hurtful words but it could be enough, would be enough, for now.</p>
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